Hey everybody,

 

Alex (goldlotus) here again, this issue brings us up to Dec 21 2017. I'll be going over selling off the remainder of my Ether and then I'll take you through Ripple rounds 2, 3 and 4. Lots to cover so let's get it on!!

 

Early on Dec 19 Etherium had topped on the Kraken exchange at $863 USD. It dipped and started its trend downwards at the same time that Bitcoin and hence the rest of the market did. I think the last time I looked at ETH was probably on my lunch break the day of the Christmas party (see Dinner Party Of DOOOOM!!!). At that time, ETH would have been down off it's new highs but looking like it was bouncing it's way back up (or at least trying to). I probably looked at it right before it started turning over and then not again until the whole market was coming down later that night. Again this was right when I was separated from my phone (no 2 factor authentication) so I had to wait it out. Although the price dipped and spent the next day trying to come back up, it didn't seem to have enough strength to continue pushing so I got out. I was holding 0.101 ETH, it sold at $815.50 which got me $82. It turned out to be the right move, very soon after it tanked and fell to to a low of $512 over the next two days. Kinda wish I had tried to dip buy here but I had something else on my plate.

 

- TRADE DETAILS -

DATE: - (Buy) Dec 3 2017 @ 9:06 pm / (Sell) Dec 21 2017 @ 1:23 am

EXCHANGE: - Kraken

BUY: - 0.16790 ETH @ 0.00684 BTC (@ approx. $11500 USD/BTC)

COST: - Approx. $78 USD ($100ish CAD)

SELL: - 0.101 ETH @ $815.50 USD for $82.36 USD

STATUS: - Trade completed

P/L: - PROFIT!!!  Although ETH went from $465ish to $815.50, because I had only a small amount in, my gains were small, only about $34 USD. Basically it paid for the 3 CryptoKitties I bought which could possibly bring added gains in the future, or maybe I'll just keep them forever, who knows. Either way, chalk it up as another win, thank you market :)

 

Many hours later in the evening of the 21st, I tried once again to get in on some ripple action. It had already gone up more than 33% on the day from 0.90 to a high of $1.24. It had come down a bit but was moving back up and I bought in at $1.15. First here's a wider view of the mayhem.

 

You can see I made 3 trades here within about 18 hours. It's not moving crazy fast which I like for now just starting out. Even though it's not moving crazy fast I somehow managed to completely screw this up, twice!! The 3rd trade was at least a small win but I missed almost all of the move because I was just so uncertain about it by that point. Once I finally felt comfortable getting back in there wasn't much upside left. Lets take a closer look.

 

 

These 1 hour charts show nothing of what I was seeing, which I hoped would be decent bounce opportunities at least, they turned out not to be. The first buy I made was 666.383 XRP for about $766 .....perhaps there was some foreshadowing here that I should have paid attention to. Like I said, I had bought in this first time at $1.15. It went against me and dropped to $1.05 so I got out for a loss of about $68, my biggest loss yet but still not all that bad. At this point I should have called it a day but I didn't. I felt XRP could still move and a little over an hour later I bought in again. I was right about one thing, it could definitely still move I just picked the wrong direction. My second buy was right around $1.00, part of my position filled at 0.99 and the rest at $1.00. Same thing, it looked a lot different (better) in the 1min chart or whatever I was seeing at the time. And once again it went against me, I had even more XRP this time because the price is now cheaper. I had bought 695.439 XRP for around $695. This time it dropped from $1.00 down to the low 0.80's over the next hour, I had managed to get out at 0.89 for a loss of $76.90, I'm now down $144.90 all together.  So I have just now followed up my biggest loss to date by an even bigger loss trading the exact same thing and making the exact same mistakes. Again, this is where I should have stepped away......

 

Enter "The Ripple Effect"

 

The Ripple effect is the effect Ripple has on me. somehow I seem convinced in my mind even now as I write this that XRP is going to take off on a crazy run any minute and go to the moon (like 10 or $15). I keep thinking about, but more importantly I keep trading off of this idea, even though there is really no reason XRP should ever get that high. It does however have some pretty major things going for it.

First and foremost, it has been designed specifically to integrate into the existing financial system and provide faster and cheaper means for traditional institutions to make exchanges across borders. It has a real good use case and already a large number of reputable banks have signed up to at least test their technology. Secondly, but not to be understated, is the fact that XRP does not require any "mining", the process by which coins of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Etherium and many others are created. This has been coming up a lot lately in the news as all of these giant computing farms are coming online to mine the flurry of different cryptos, the energy expenditure is rising at an exponential rate. If the future of currency is indeed digital, I don't see how it can be based on such costly and wasteful systems, there will likely be a push away from "mined" coins once this all goes mainstream enough, there's just no telling when that could be. Next is the fact that XRP did not come up from the seedy underground of online drug marketplaces, it's a suit and tie kind of gig, less sketchy, more mainstream acceptable. Sort of tying into that is the fact Bitcoin and the other alt-coins that first sprung up were originally being touted as alternatives to (replacements for) government backed fiat currencies. Right away that set off many people On Wall St. on a war against all crypto "currencies". Ripple has been all above the books, regulated and playing nicely from day one. It's not seen as a "threat" to the existing financial system or more specifically the old fat cats resistant to change, getting rich off the old system just the way it is.

And then there's the matter of supply, XRP has a supply of many tens of Billions!!! Bitcoin has a mere 21 Million. Though lower supply with a higher demand can make Bitcoin more "valuable", Ripple may be able to get into more hands quicker in the short term, pushing wider adoption with its faster, cheaper and more scalable transactions, more and more exchanges are starting to support XRP.

Now as XRP is mainly going to be used by financial institutions to facilitate cross border exchange, those institutions are going to want to work with something that is stable and not prone to wild swings of 60-80%. As a twitchy noob trader, I might have to call it quits on Ripple one day...just not this day.

 

In we go again! XRP had bottomed out at 0.68, I wanted to get in but I didn't trust it. It kept coming back up but I still didn't trust it even as it passed $1.90 and $1.95. I finally stopped doubting and got in at $1.03 with 596.06373 XRP at a cost of about $616. I caught just the very end of this big bounce and got out right near the top at $1.11944 for a modest little gain of $49. This put me up to......$666.18......hmm......that number 666 again....what's going on here?!?! Anyways, by this time I was happy to make back a little bit of my loss. Not a total redemption (yet) but I'll take it and get me the hell outta XRP for now thank you very much! Time to fixate on something else, but that's in the next issue.

 

- TRADE DETAILS -

DATE: - (Buy) Dec 21 2017 @ 9:09 pm / (Sell) Dec 21 2017 @ 9:50 pm

EXCHANGE: - Kraken

BUY: - 666.383 XRP @ $1.15 USD

COST: - $766.34 USD

SELL: - 664.66 XRP @ $1.05 USD

STATUS: - Trade completed

P/L: - LOSS!!!  $68.45 USD my biggest loss yet.

 

- TRADE DETAILS -

DATE: - (Buy) Dec 21 2017 @ 11:06 pm / (Sell) Dec 21 2017 @ 11:25 pm

EXCHANGE: - Kraken

BUY: - 695.44 XRP @ call it $1.00  USD

COST: - $695.44 USD

SELL: - 694.97 XRP @ $0.89 USD

STATUS - Trade completed

P/L: - LOSS!!! my first 2 in a row, yaaaaay!!! No, not yay. Boo, Boourns! Down another $76.91. Get your act together buster!

 

- TRADE DETAILS -

DATE: - (Buy) Dec 22 2017 @ 1:43 pm / (Sell) Dec 22 2017 @ 2:58 pm

EXCHANGE: - Kraken

BUY: - 596.06 XRP @ $1.03 USD

COST: - $613.94 USD

SELL: - 595.10 XRP @ $1.119 USD

STATUS: - Trade completed

P/L: - PROFIT!!!! $51.97 That's a little more like it, let's keep things green! Thank you market! :) So now in TOTAL I'm down just $100.00

 

And thank you again for reading, there's plenty more to come. I actually hope the markets stay sideways for a few more days so I can try and finish getting these posts out and get caught up. See you again soon.

 

Peace

Alex